The rebels of the Romantic period speak more directly to the issues of today than any other group of writers of the past. Mary Wollstonecraft exposed the problem of women's rights; her husband William Godwin protested against war, economic and social imbalances, and cruel penal practices; their daughter Mary Shelley produced the original science fiction, "Frankenstein," and introduced into the novel radical social and antireligious views. Shelley campaigned in Ireland for Irish separation, wrote pamphlets on parliamentary reform, and propounded an egalitarian world; Byron addressed himself to problems of social injustice and lost his life as a result of his participation in the Greek war of independence. Leigh Hunt, the first radical, crusading journalist, battled all forms of injustice from child labor to army flogging; Thomas Love Peacock's lively, satiric novels excoriated sham.

Their rebellion carried into their personal lives: Mary Wollstonecraft, Shelley, and Byron openly flouted the laws of marital relations, and several adopted unconventional dress. The rebels paid dearly for their public and private views. Shelley was deprived of his children, Byron was driven into exile, and Leigh Hunt was imprisoned.

The lives and works of these major Romantics are sketched in a concise and lively way in these twelve essays, which are derived from "Shelley and His Circle," Volumes I through IV. The collection provides a cohesive picture of some of the Romantics whose lives interlocked in the early 1800's.

A non-Eurocentric portrait of the major developments and integrations of social and cultural movements.

The magnificent collection of "Shelley and His Circle" manuscripts in the Carl H. Pforzheimer Library is one of our finest sources for the English Romantic movement. This edition presents the more than 450 manuscripts from 1772 to 1822, over half of them by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Volumes I and II include a first accurate printing of Shelley's letters to Thomas Hogg during a crucial period of his life; another series of letters records a struggle between Forman and Silsbee for acquisition of Shelley's papers that was the background for Henry James's Aspern Papers; Thomas Love Peacock, William Godwin, Leigh Hunt, Mary Wollstonecraft, and others are represented by materials (most of them previously unpublished) that throw much new light on their lives and times. The Peacock and part of the Wollstonecraft manuscripts were edited by Eleanor L. Nicholes, and The Diary of Harriet Grove (Shelley's boyhood sweetheart) by Frederick L. Jones. New and effective editorial, bibliographical and typographical methods were devised to deal with special problems.

The publication of Volumes III and IV of Shelley and His Circle under the editorial auspices of Kenneth Neill Cameron makes available a further portion of the Shelley manuscript materials in the Carl H. Pforzheimer Library. These two volumes continue in the format and style of Volumes I and II, which received the critical acclaim of, among others, John Ciardi, who lauded Cameron and his contributing editors for rescuing "the material from felonious footnotery primarily by enclosing it in a continuous narrative that contains detailed introductions to each of the characters of the circle, and a general background of their relationships and of the times." Volumes III and IV progress chronologically through Shelley's life, beginning with the early years of Shelley's marriage to Harriet Westbrook, where Volume II ended, and concluding with her suicide. Among the manuscripts are twelve letters and literary pieces by Byron including the first of his "separation" poem "Fare Thee Well," the expanded 1814 journal of Claire Clairmont, the curious triangular correspondence of Shelley, Mary Godwin, and Thomas Jefferson Hogg, Shelley's annotated copy of Queen Mab, and the suicide letter Harriet Shelley wrote a few hours before she drowned in the Serpentine. A number of maps especially prepared for this edition and other supplementary illustrations enhance the impeccable scholarship of these volumes which, with the projected publication of the remaining materials, will present a half century of interconnected biographies and will suggest the literary and intellectual tenor of the Romantic era. The Pforzheimer collection, exceeded only by that at the Bodleian in the number of Shelley and Shelleyana manuscripts, reflects the personal interests of Carl H. Pforzheimer, who put together one of the notable private libraries of modern times. Before his death in 1957, he planned the form of publication for his collection, designing it not only for the academic use of scholars but also as a stimulating and readable set for the enthusiastic layman.